Present invention embodiments relate to determining connections in a network, and more specifically, to finding nodes on simple paths between points in a network subject to a hop limit.
Analysts examining large networks (e.g. social networks) must sometimes find paths between two nodes in the network. For example, in a law enforcement or intelligence investigation, an analyst may seek to understand if information can be passed from one individual to another by constructing all possible paths through which information may flow. Finding all paths in a network is a combinatorial problem. In order to make the problem tractable, a limit on the number of paths may be provided by the analyst. For instance, the analyst may seek all paths of up to six hops between source and target. However, in the worst case, the number of paths increases rapidly with the size of the network and the required number of hops.